Death Note news articles

Jump SQ have Tweeted a preview of the Platinum End artwork to adorn its 8th anniversary edition centrefold.

The third collaboration between author Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata - which began with Death Note - appears to be about a suicidal human visited by an angel.

Platinum End follows the fortunes of Mirai Kakehashi, a young boy without any 'hope in living'. The fact that an angel also features prominently in the story would suggest that Heavenly forces have his back. Presumably to help on a quest to acquire some aforementioned hope.

Find more information about the release and publication of Ohba and Obata's new manga in last week's piece announcing it.

And in the meantime, help me work out why translators are suddenly calling Takeshi Ken Obata. Has he gone and changed his first name? Or has some strange algorithm tweak left Takeshi lost in translation?

This should be of interest to Death Note fans - Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata are teaming up again, and the bare hint from the tag-line implies the plot will be right up our alley.

PLATINUM ENDThis is the story of a human and an angel.

Well, we all seemed quite taken last time, when it was a human and a shinigami!

The announcement will appear in the next edition of Weekly Shonen Jump, issue 44, due out on September 28th 2015. It will be followed by a Platinum End première feature the following week, in the October 5th Weekly Shonen Jump No 45.

However, it will be another Shueisha title - Jump Square - wherein the actual serialisation will begin.

Our Death Note creators' brand new manga Platinum End launches on November 4th 2015, dated the Jump SQ December 2015 edition - thus is the way of the world.

Tsugumi Ohba: Angels and Humans

Angels featured subtly in Death Note too

I don't know about you, but I'm quite excited about this! Given Ohba's propensity to mess around with angels - vis-a-vis Light's lifting of Lucifer quotations from Paradise Lost and Mello's alignment (made explicit in the recent televised Death Note drama) with the archangel Michael - I feel that the groundwork has already been forged. And that was quite fabulous.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Please do leave your comments below in the usual manner, but I'm also going to insert a poll about this. Mostly because I've only just noticed I've got a pre-coded poll module that I can insert, and I want to find out what it does.

Only tenuously Death Note related, it's all about Bakuman in their creators' world this week.

While we might consider Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata in terms of OUR manga, they have collaborated much more recently than that on the semi-autobiographical Bakuman.

It's a series which chronicles the rise of an author and writer within the manga industry.

The current edition of Weekly Shonen Jump (September 21st 2015) includes the first in a special two-parter prequel to the main Bakuman chapters.

It tells what happened with main characters Moritaka Mashiro - pen name Saikō - and Akito Takagi - later known as Shūjin - before the pair joined forces to produce a wildly popular manga series. Like, you know, Ohba and Obata did in real life with Death Note.

Spanning 23 chapters, the first part of this Bakuman prequel has boosted the manga magazine to a hefty 315 pages! Featured as an added bonus is a full colour Bakuman centrespread.

The original Bakuman manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2008-2012. Those chapters were collected into twenty volumes published by Shueisha, which have sold over 15 million copies worldwide. An anime based upon the story was televised over three seasons, aired in Japanese television between 2010-2013.

Viz Media and Media Blasters reproduced English language versions of the manga and anime respectively, primarily for North American audiences.

A live action Bakuman movie is due to be released on October 3rd 2015, hence the two part prequel beginning in Weekly Shonen Jump this week. It acts as a tie-in special event and incidentally helps boost publicity for the film.

Fictional Bakuman Manga Becomes Real

In the story, Muto Ashirogi's third manga is entitled PCP -Kanzen Hanzaitō- (trans. PCP - Perfect Crime Party). Now that fictional manga is due for release as a real world novel.

It will bear Ashirogi's name as the first author, though his co-author Sei Hatsuno (HaruChika) probably did much of the work here.

Another blatant tie-in, the novel will hit bookshelves on October 2nd 2015, one day ahead on the Bakuman movie.

New Takeshi Obata Artwork for Bakuman OST

Takeshi Obata draws the artwork for Bakuman's soundtrack CD

A new live-action Bakuman film means an original soundtrack to accompany it. For fans of Takeshi Obata's art, this is an unexpected avenue in which to discover some.

Obata has created the artwork for the Bakuman CD soundtrack, including that for a CD single Shin Takarajima (pictured above) lifted from the OST. Due to be released in a limited edition format, the song has been recorded by rock band Sakanaction and features in the movie.

A rather intriguing countdown timer has appeared on the official Warner Bros website for their Japanese live action Death Note films.

Countdown on the Death Notelive action movie website- gif captured on September 11th 2015

Ordinarily, the site is dedicated to the earlier trilogy of Death Note movies - Death Note (2006); Death Note II: The Last Name (2006); and L: Change the World (2008).

They were all distributed by Warner Bros., with the first two produced in conjunction with Nippon Television (NTV).

This is significant, as the timer on that website runs out on September 13th 2015, at 10.30pm Japanese time. Also known as the moment when the final installment of NTV's Death Note television drama finishes airing.

In short, the small screen climax will coincide with whatever news for the big screen this will bring. A double w(h)ammy for Death Note fans then.

Naturally I've checked the source code to see what clues might lie in there. Nothing much. Just a plain, old page with the apple icon bouncing and the countdown completing.

Its meta tags are all in Japanese, but for one English language rendering of the title Death Note and the words 'movie, trailer'. Which are repeated in the native tongue too, alongside the kanji for Yagami, Light, Raito, Kira, Shueisha, Nippon Television, NTV, official, film, Warner and Warner Bros.

All of which could pertain to the content this counter replaced. Or might not.

The current buzz, across the fandom and anime/manga news sites, is that we're about to see a fourth Japanese live action Death Note film announced. But it's all speculation at this juncture.

Back in April, we had the heads up that Death Note author Tsugumi Ohba was writing manga again.

The genre couldn't have been more different from the dark Gothicism of Death Note. Skip! Yamada-kun was a romantic one-shot aimed at the prepubescent female manga market.

Ever wonder what happened to that?

The denizens of Reddit did, and they found it too.

Death Note News readerdfrt67uhg gave us a heads up on their quest to find Skip! Yamada-kun online. You may have already seen this, but as the alert was buried in the comments to an unrelated article, I figured it would be much more visible here.

Naturally much thanks are extended here todfrt67uhg for thinking of us.

Weekly Young Jump May 8th 2014

Tsugumi Ohba's Time-Travel One-Shot

Tsugumi Obha's Skip! Yamada-kun one shot was duly published in the May 8th 2014 edition of Weekly Young Jump No. 23.

The front cover is reproduced left.

Skip! Yamada-kun tells of a junior high school boy - the eponymous Yamada - who dreamed of a better life. There was nothing majorly wrong with the one he'd got, Yamada was just sick of things like going to school, doing homework etc.

Like most kids then.

Unlike most kids, Yamada-kun learns that he has the ability to jump through time. Thus begins a juvenile time-traveling hunt for the perfect life. Will he find it?

That would be telling. No, it really would be telling, as I speak no Japanese and this story hasn't been translated into English yet. Therefore I have absolutely no idea what happens next.

Hence potentialmisidentifications running wild in my reading.

Death Note's Near in
Skip! Yamada-kun?

Being a light-weight, romantic one-shot, this manga probably doesn't hold much interest for Death Note fans beyond the fact of its author.

But flicking through, I did spot a familiar face.

So that's what Near did post-Kira! He became a teacher for Yamada-kun!

At least that what it looks like to me. I'm possibly wrong. Like I said, I have no Japanese, so I'm missing all the context in the captions and dialogue.

But if you are much more educated than me, a lovely Redditor has created a way for you to resolve all mysteries for yourself.

Read Skip! Yamada-kun Online

It all began when forum member Ramfield asked r/manga if anyone had found the Skip! Yamada-kun manga by Tsugumi Ohba.

There was some discussion, but no joy in anyone actually reading it, until Redditor 891st jumped in with a tremendous offer. 891st had the raw Japanese manga one-shot from its publication in Weekly Young Jump. (S)he was willing to scan it for everyone else to view it too.

Equal to their word, the OP delivered. All 55 pages of it! You may read the result on Imgur, also embedded below.

Shuiesha announced that Nobuaki Enoki's 'shocking court mystery' manga will feature throughout 2015, as a Weekly Shonen Jump serial, beginning with the January publication (due in December 2014).

So far, so utterly relevant within the remit of this blog. Until you notice that Takeshi Obata is the artist brought on board for the project. Shuiesha will be hoping that Death Note's own visionary will be able to reprise his magic for this title too.

Previously, Gakkyū Hōtei's artwork was drawn by its author Enoki. The story, formatted as a Smartphone app, ran as part of Jump Live.

'Gakkyū Hōtei' translates as School Investigation Court. Each of the manga's chapters will highlight another elementary school offender, as they go to trial.

It's a kind of Ace Attorney meets Grade School because... well, why not? High School students being judgmental is hardly anything new (it sets them up for adulthood, where being opinionated comes as standard, though we have to be more subtle about finger pointing and kicking people out of our gangs).

Though I'm still unsure about how legally binding these School Tribunals are, nor am I 100% on the nature of the crimes under consideration.

If it's mass murder via a supernatural note book, then Obata has this one totally in the bag. Whatever it is, I'm sure he'll cope.

We've all delighted in his artistry. We've debated long and hard over the decisions that he made visually. But until you glanced at that photograph, did you even know what Takeshi Obata looked like?

It's perhaps the mark of a true artist that his life is judged by its creativity, rather than his biography.

Nevertheless, as soon as it occurred to me that I knew nothing about him, I had to go on a voyage of discovery. Coming with me?

Biography of Takeshi Obata - Mangaka of Death Note

Takeshi Obata was born on February 11th 1969, in the city of Niigata, on the eponymously named Niigata Perfecture, in Japan. (For those of you with as dodgy a grasp of geography as myself, that's a port on the north-west coast of Japan's largest island.)

In 1985, he entered his one shot 500 Kōnen no Shinwaa into a competition run by Weekly Shonen Jump. The Tezuka Award was established to discover and showcase new artists. Takeshi certainly fit the bill. He walked away with the top prize AND a job at the magazine.

Manga artist Makoto Niwano took the young Obata under his wing, mentoring him and allowing him some practical hands on experience under his guidance. It was probably on works like The Momotaroh, which was being published around that time.

By 1989, the executives at Shonen Jump felt that Takeshi's art had matured enough to give him his big break. That came with Takeshi Obata's debut series Cyborg Jii-chan G, which he both wrote and illustrated.

That was followed by Arabian Majin Boukentan Lamp (1991), Rikijin Densetsu (1993) and Ayatsuri Sakon (1995). Each of those had their own writer, Takeshi supplied only the artwork.

His name was really made in 1998, when Takeshi teamed up with Yumi Hotta for the wildly successful Hikaru no Go.

The coming of age tale earned Takeshi and Yumi a joint Shogakukan Manga Award in 1999 - one of the genre's most prestigious accolades.

Takeshi Obata's fame, whilst working Hikaru no Go, was such that he was one of the artists chosen to contribute to Adidas Manga Fever - an anthology of stories created to mark the FIFA World Cup 2002.In addition Shueisha asked him to contribute the artwork for its manga Hajime.

In 2003, Obata and Hotta took home the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize's Creative Award for their manga series. It must have seemed that nothing in Takeshi Obata's career could ever top thatmoment.

And that was when he was approached to illustrate Death Note.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that this has been the highest point of an already soaring career to date. It assured world wide celebrity for the artist and, amongst other things, spawned this blog. It also saw Takeshi nominated for the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Artist (comic/manga industry's equivalent to the Oscars), but he unfortunately lost out to Chris Ware for Acme Novelty Library #18. (Who?)

In addition to the main manga serialization of Death Note, Takeshi Obata also provided the cover artwork for its spin-off novels: Another Note and L Save the World. But we won't hold that against him.

Since Death Note, he's never been out of work. There was Blue Dragon: Ral Ω Grado (2006), Hello Baby (2007), Urooboe Uroboros! (2008), Otter No 11 (2010) and now All You Need Is Kill(2014).

In the middle of all that, he teamed up again with his Death Note co-creator Tsugumi Ohba to produced their how-to-be-a-manga-writer-and-artist guidebook disguised as a manga story - Bakuman. It debuted in 2008 and, though its never received anything like the attention of Death Note, it's been fairly well read.

And that's about it! It turns out that there wasn't much to learn behind the art after all, unless anyone else here has any facts or gossip that they want to share. In the meantime, here is Takeshi Obata doing what he does best.

Death Note gamers will now be able to pit their wits against a series of puzzles and ciphers, in a new Smartphone App game released by Shueisha.

The first part of Death Note Shinsekai e no Izanai (Death Note Invitation to a New World) launched on April 12th 2014 for devices running iOS or Android. With the second, third and fourth parts coming in staggered releases at the end of April, middle of May and the end of that month respectively.

The Death Note Smartphone App is currently only available in Japanese.

Players will find themselves inside a locked room, from which they need to escape. This involves following clues, deactivating/bypassing traps and solving puzzles in order to unlock the door.

It's been created as part of Death Note's 10th Anniversary celebrations. Anyone downloading it as we speak?

I'm not going to lie. This is the most exciting up-date for me so far.

All of the Death Note manga have been officially digitalized and free previews placed online. We get to see the Jump Comic volumes in a choice of two formats: as published, or in full colour.

FULL COLOUR! That doesn't mean a few pages at the beginning and the end. That means every single solitary panel of each and every page. Colourings just got canon.

Which further means that after nearly a decade of the entire Death Note fandom depicting Matt with red hair and green eyes, he's just officially become a brunette. With a red and black striped shirt.

As yet, the digital editions of the Death Note manga are only in Japanese. But that's never taken very long to sort out. Plus, let's face it, we've all got enough copies by now in our own languages, that the teams of scanlation angels hardly need to rush themselves on our account.

Anyone going to rush to get their cyber paws on these versions? I'm counting myself as a yes there.

What scenes and/or characters are you most looking forward to seeing in colour? And Matt fans (of which we are legion, expect us), will you be altering ten years of mental images to match his now canon black hair?

For the record, no, I am not going through ten fan-fiction novels to change his tresses. Feel free to copy them onto your own computers and run through with an editing program, if you really wish that to conform to canon. (We all ignored the anime sludge-green-brown hair colouring anyway.)

In probably the most widely foreseen up-date of the day, Shueisha has announced a reissuing of Death Note manga in 10th anniversary editions.

Whole new legions of Death Note fans will be created (and decade old ones persuaded to part with their money to maintain their collections) with the same story told over seven volumes.

As an added incentive, the books will include limited edition goodies like a 'Kira Card' (similar to that of L in How To Read Volume 13), and apparently a composite pull out poster too.

Readers will have to purchase all seven volumes in order to complete their montage poster of Death Note characters.

To my mind, this is highly unnecessary given that we've already got the original Death Note manga, plus the Black Editions, plus the limited edition reissues which came out with the collectors' items figures... need I go on?

But if you're tempted anyway, the first two 10th Anniversary Edition Death Note manga volumes will be in Japanese stores on March 18th 2014.

No doubt they will then swiftly be translated into every other language, shortly to be on international bookshelves too.

Want to pit your wits against puzzles produced by Near? Then you'll get your chance on April 7th 2014.

Shueisha is launching a Death Note Smartphone app., as part of the avalanche of goodies available to fans marking the 10th anniversary of the manga's release.

The scant information on offer suggests that the SPK in Japan is looking for volunteers to think like Kira. That means genius deduction and following clues. I'm assuming that Near wrote them, considering the source. (Unless it was one of his staff members, in which case we won't have had to graduate from Wammy's House to solve the riddles.)

Upon downloading the Death Note smartphone game, you will be presented with a cipher. You won't be able to progress until you've decoded it, then you'll venture deeper through the levels.